


Blue Bloods

by nerdybloomers



Series: 120 Drabble Challenge [5]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: F/M, Post-EW, seriously this ship can never be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 03:30:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7918807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdybloomers/pseuds/nerdybloomers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mariemaia is every bit her father's daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Bloods

**Author's Note:**

> I fought with myself on whether or not I'd be willing to write with Mariemaia, but with Treize and Une never getting closure, it seems like the biggest twist of dramatic irony that Une would take her in. Here we assume that Mariemaia is Treize's kid, and not the random street rat that's alluded to in the manga.
> 
> Prompt #23: Sympathy
> 
> Drabble challenge on my old dA: http://shibaayame.deviantart.com/art/120-Drabble-Challenge-250678524

She can see it in the way the sun bounces off ginger hair in the breeze, or in the way the whole universe rests in eyes too stoic for their age. The weight of the world pushes down on strong shoulders, but the noble chin stays up.

Mariemaia is every bit her father’s daughter.

Sure, the girl hadn’t known him. Hell, Une even had doubts that she was even related to Leia Barton, the mother who had supposedly birthed her far from the Khushrenada line, simply because they didn’t look alike. The similarities to Treize were too much to ignore, though.

At first, she felt obligated to take the girl in. If she was Treize’s child, she owed him that much. And with both of her parents in the grave, her grandfather shooting her and then getting shot down himself, she needs a home with someone who can afford her hospital bills, who has first hand experience with relearning yourself outside of the context of war, especially when it’s shaped you so significantly. There’s a lot of grooming to unlearn.

Then, doubt. Une didn’t think she was fit to be a mother. Caretaker, yes, but nothing close to a maternal figure for this kid - seven years old, raised to be a puppet and follow the wishes of the Barton Foundation through the thin guise of Treize’s supposed ideals, told to her secondhand. She didn’t need a governess. She needed unconditional love.

They have a silent agreement not to talk about him.

But there’s a turning point, a soft summer evening where Mariemaia approaches Une sitting alone in the study - his study - and asks about him. Who he really was, from the mouth of the one who spent the most time with him. His favorite things, his least favorite things. And, of course, his actual philosophy, and not the one spoon-fed to her by the so-called grandfather who’d raised her til now.

For the first time since his funeral, Une finds herself crying. She sees the look of utmost sympathy in those blue, blue eyes and she absolutely loses it. She can’t do anything but curl back into herself, in his chair, at his desk, and she’s just surrounded by so much _him_ that she can hardly bear it-

And then there’s a shift, and her hand is suddenly wrapped in another, smaller than her own. Mariemaia doesn’t say anything. Even for her, the child that grew up hearing she was bigger than the world, there’s nothing that she can say. If she couldn’t feel sorry for Dekim, she felt she had no room to mourn the father she didn’t know. But the child posessed some level of gravitas that kids her age shouldn't have, that even some adults never achieve. Une knows where she gets it from.

So they sit in silence, small fingers wrapped around a shaking hand.

A few evenings later, Une returns to the study with trepidation. The lights are dim and she hears the fire crackling before she pushes the door open just a little too fast, hoping to catch a glimpse of - what, exactly? The man who lived here before, who added himself to the last casualty report he’d ever asked her for? Treize was gone, and he’d never sit in that chair again. But Mariemaia did, small form curled into the leather, hands wrapped around Treize’s favorite novel, hair the color of autumn leaves tucked back behind her ear.

She could live with that.


End file.
